Online photo printing has hit a price war as of late. When I purchased my personal all-in-one photo printer (Epson RX5000 and I’ve loved it!) last year, I compared the cost of photo prints on it vs. printing photos at my local Wal-Mart. At the time, the Epson printer cost me approximately 10 cents vs. the 27 cents at Wal-Mart if I compared the cost of paper and replacement ink. If you didn’t get an iPod for Christmas, chances are you got a digital camera which has not only led to the price wars between both online and in-store printing, but it’s enticed other companies to enter the market as well.

While I have no affiliation with Wal-Mart, nor do I enjoy shopping at their stores anymore, then did have a great service setup in regards to their photo printing. Not only could order prints online, but you could have them sent to your local Wal-Mart for pickup. After learning more about their printing process, I realized I didn’t like the online-print option because I couldn’t order my prints on matte paper (non-glossy, fingerprint free photo paper). So, I would then take my memory card into my local Wal-Mart and use their FujiFilm kiosk to order my prints.

That was a year ago. That also happens to be the last time I order any photo prints, anywhere. Since I purchased my Nikon D70 camera, I’ve been yearning to print my best photos at a larger size than the standard 4×6 or 5×7 that you would normally get. I’ve also been wanting to see what other prices printers were offering as well what type of print options I have. This led to yet another one of my [in]famous spreadsheets where I take data no one is interested in and organize it in such a fashion that in the end, I will have regretted the percentage of my life I’ve wasted on such drab subject. Fortunately I know fellow nerds that might find this info useful and so I pioneer on.

About the data I’ve compiled:
I don’t have any affiliation with any of these companies, nor have I used any of these companies’ services this year. My information samples came strictly from their website (if I was able to view that specific information) and I only sampled the data I was interested in. So, what did I get? I recorded each company’s price per photo per dimension, shipping & handling, and available paper selection. Each of the companies offer more than just standard photo printing, and better yet, even more than your standard mouse pad and coffee mug printings. I didn’t care about any of that (at least not at this time). I’m not saying you should choose any one of these companies over the other. Each have their own niche, but each also handle important issues differently, like how your photos are stored, whether they accept rolls of film as well as digital photos, what shipping methods they use, length of time to receive orders, and if the offer discounts or coupons. I did not compare that information at this time.

So, what *did* you find?
Winkflash would be my choice, for now, to have my photos printed with them. They offer a wide range of dimension (photo sizes) and they have a flat $0.99 S&H charge vs. other printers who charge by the bulk-quantity of photos you order. They also let you store an unlimited number of photos on their server and they don’t seem to expire, whereas Wal-Mart seems to give you unlimited temporary space which expires 2 months after you upload a set of photos.

Will I expand this list?
Probably. If time allows, I might actually give a review of each of the services, but for now, I’m really just interested in the prices. When you view the spreadsheet, the green boxes indicate the lowest price while the yellow box is the highest.

Click here or on the image above to access my comparison of online photo printers.

Feel free to share this information, but if you are going to link to it, please refer people to this article and not directly to the spreadsheet. Thanks and enjoy!